chinese language media and other things, but it's an issue where both parties appear to me in camera to be united around preserving the integrity of their own reputations. and the system, i think the same is true in new zealand, although they probably don't have an election this year. all right. we are going to wrap up. i want to thank you all very much. we are going to turn now to even scarier stuff, with bonnie glazer, and right away without a break. so bonnie, you have the microphone. so let's thank the panel for their predictions and your predictions.

all right, we're going to move right into our security threats panel. and get your clickers ready. i will briefly introduce everybody. we have a really terrific team, of course we could all sort of do some other panels as well, but these folks are really security focused. we have to my extreme right again, i'm sure no comment about you politically, pat, but pat buchan who runs our alliances and american leadership project. and then to his left of course is victor cha. who is senior adviser and core chair here. and greg poling who direct our

maritime initiative and a fellow with the southeast asia program. nick szechenyi, deputy director and senior fellow at the japan chair. and i'm bonnie glazer and i run the china power project here. so we are going to start, i think, by looking at a slide from last year. so if you could put that up. we had started last year with the question of where will a major security incident most likely occur? now, you know, you may all remember, we were here in january of 2018, and we were all thinking we were going to have a real crisis on the korean peninsula, and we were talking about fire and fury, and the potential for the u.s. using force and you know, here we are, a year later, with a totally

different situation on the korean peninsula. south china sea, you know, interesting, within 2018, we did have the incident with the decatur at the end of the year, with a chinese ship going probably within, it was about i think 45 feet, but you know, no major incident. east china sea, you know, really interesting, at the end of the year, in december, there was actually no incursion by a chinese coast guard vessel into the 12 nautical miles around the islands which is sort of interesting, but we already had three this month, so maybe we're heading back to where we were. and then of course, taiwan strait looked pretty low this year, it will be interesting to see what people say about that this year. and then the sign border, we were still six months after it, and i think people were worried about the potential for another

incident but we had the modi meeting with xi jingping and wu han and they really diffused that issue i think and although there has been a major pla buildup in the area since then. so that's where we were in 2018 and we are going to ask the exact same question now for 20109. so if you could take us to the next slide. please make sure your clickers are on. i hope you all vote. you can see the total number of votes that are being cast. i know there's more people in this room that are voting and we don't have the ability to actually identify what your vote is. it really is anonymous. no great cyber capabilities here. so we hope that you will cast your vote. and we are going to look at where a major security incident is most likely to occur. interesting of course, you know, we've got core down, we've got south china sea up. we have east china sea, interesting, still, even lower than last year, but in increase

in taiwan and sino-indian border much lower than last year. since south china sea seems to be the biggest concern, why don't we start with you, greg. is there really a likelihood of a major security incident in the south china sea and what would trigger it? >> sure. so for me, i just flipped a coin in my head and picked korea but south china sea is a perfectly reasonable choice, i think. you know, last year, a number of incidents happened i think to indicate the way that this year and the following year is going to go. we had the decatur situation as you mentioned where the chinese response was much more aggressive, i would argue more grev, and probably more discontent with the way the relationship is going and i think it also reflects china's anger over the multilateralism of fonops, we had the first

major fon-ops and an increased in activities of by the french the pace and scope of the patrol. and the japanese continue to operate. so i think china feels like they win the south chain sea if they keep it as a bilateral sign of the u.s. narrative. they can win that narrative. if it is an issue of china versus the international community, that is much harder for beijing to win. so we might well see more aggressive attempts to dissuade other parties from trying to defend freedom of navigation. the philippines and the t review the name you mentioned is also a potential trigger if the americans come forward with a statement that is, i would say, insufficiently clear, it could, might, it might very well, you know, provoke adventurism from beijing, testing that commitment. conversely, i think it we offer it quite clear, a clarification on mbt scope, it dissuades china, because it lays down not that i like using the term, but red line, and it makes clear to beijing where the trigger for u.s. intervention would be.

we will have to see where that goes. but it is clearly an open question. and then we saw yet another example of china using the threat force to force the vietnamese to cancel oil and gas drilling last year. the same happened in 2017. the vietnamese aren't going to take this forever. they're not buying the narrative that the code of conduct has, they don't believe that china is severe in the diplomatic outreach to alceon in the way the french and philippinos do. so there is always a potential for a small scale incident between vietnam and china to escalate. there is also without the u.s., a potential incident of china and philippines. last year we had a dangerous case of a chinese harassment of the mission to the see ra madre, the philippines ship on which they have eight marines. we had the year before two different incidents. so i mean my prediction, i don't know if it happens tomorrow, six months from now or six years

from now, there will be a violent incident in the south china sea that has a potential to escalate. they all do. i guess i have no idea if it will happen before december 31. >> great. second is taiwan strait. we've gone up now to 22%. and my view is the chinese have a toolbox of ways that they can put a lot of pressure on taiwan, which they are doing, we see it diplomatically and economically, militarily. we have elections not in 2019, but in january 2020. usually, the chinese, as you get closer to elections, they go more into the sort of covert influential mode and less i think in this sort of overt ways of influencing taiwan. there's been a lot of air activity around the island. but perhaps that represents concerns about what xi jingping's speech means. i will go on the record as disagrees most people on the

implications of that speech. i do not think that china or xi jingping has set a deadline for reunification. i think a close read of that speech, which would give, not the new years speech but the 40th anniversary of the message to taiwan come patriate, this was basically a requirement, a speech he had to make, it was long, and comprehensive, but you can count the number of times that he talked about peaceful unification. it's not surprising, of course, that xi jingping would leave the use of force on the table as a possibility. but i think a close read of that speech shows how little room to maneuver xi jingping actually has on taiwan. and that he has to shore up his flank. he can't be vulnerable to criticism domestically on taiwan. so he's certainly had to restate the policy, and state china's determination to unify taiwan. but i don't see it as urgent and i know some other people in this town do.

we will move to korean peninsula. and victor, we've gone down about, i think, from 42% last year, and we're now at 16%. pretty significant drop. do you agree? >> well, it is interesting that the south china sea went up 27 points from last year, and korea went down by just about the same amount. so everybody who voted for korea last year, has now voted for the south china sea. i think, it is hard to say, is this a reflection of the fact that people think that diplomacy is succeeding with north korea? or is it really more, you know, a relative thing, relative to the south china sea, it looks like there is more potential activity there. i think that it reflects a general view among all of you that when there is positive talk, you know, about diplomacy, and the elite themselves have

committed to a diplomatic process, that gives people some sense of confidence that, you know, this thing won't erupt into a crisis. but you know, i would just remind everybody, that it is north korea. so today, everything could be peaceful, but if this second summit doesn't work out, and there's a lot of pressure on the second summit to actually produce something tangible this time, not just a statement of principles, you know, this is the danger of negotiating at the summit level, because if you don't achieve what you want to achieve, by definition, then the negotiation has failed because there is no place else to go. so in that sense, i understand that the audience is essentially reflecting what they see are positive statements from the leadership. it has really been no tangible change in the security situation on the ground. they are still amassing some real, developing weapons, maintaining bases, but i mean

that's okay. i'm happy to see the south china sea sort of win this year. >> so nick in the east china sea, we will probably have a summit between prime minister abe, xi jingping, here maybe in the time frame not quite set yet. does the improvement in japan/china relations make a security incident in the east china sea less likely? >> thanks, bonnie. i think that's probably true in the near term. you already mentioned that the operational tempo in the east china sea has decreased of late. and that probably speaks to the desire for bilateral diplomacy this year. at the same time, as was mentioned previously, japan is fundamentally concerned about china's long-term military ambitions. and in mid december, just released a new defense strategy, and a five-year procurement plan, focused very much on

defending japanese territory, and the southwest island chain. so there's still concern about china's long-term ambitions. and you will see japan continue to invest in defense capabilities, strengthening the alliance with the u.s., and partnerships with others in the region. but i can understand why this question only garnered 2% in the near term. hopefully the relative stability in japan, china, ties of late, will reduce the likelihood of an incident in the near term. >> if there were to be an incident, do you think it would be controllable, gink how potentially volatile that relationship is in a very strong nationalistic feelings on both sides and the history? >> i think there's certainly ongoing concern about the potential for accidental escalation. on the other hand, the bilateral diplomacy that we saw last year produced some progress in

developing hot lines between japan and china, to prevent accidental conflict. so i think the chances of avoiding such a circumstance have improved. but it is still a very volatile situation and one that needs to be watched closely. >> so pat, looking at this from the perspective of australia, what is australia most worried about? on that particular set of issues? is it south china sea or is it something else? and what does australia think is the most likely security incident that could involve potentially australia either politically or even potentially militarily? >> thanks, bonnie. well, you know, when i found out i had to sit on the doom and gloom panel, i was a bit upset, because as an optimist i will take a call here, before i get

to your question, i wonder if there is a false positive, because i think the world has had enough of drama the last few years and maybe we will have a phrase, a dip, where we see things calm down a little bit in the region. i think from the australian point of view, and being in the united states now for almost five years, so i'm not as plugged in as i perhaps once was, but colleagues that i speak to, i think, you would see, if we had an australian audience here, would probably go for b, south chine china sea. obviously for them, it's the most not only geographically closest in terms of proximity, but also in terms of australia's critical reliance on its trade flows all going through that area and also, the unequivocal answer we still haven't gone on where does the ansis treaty sit regarding the south china sea? legal scholar, academic, diplomats, there is still a lot of wording around that, and

where does australia's obligations on the south china sea sit? and you've seen over the years, i will recall probably back in 2005, 2006, a difference between the foreign minister and the prime minister on that one. so i think for australian officials and for the public at large, i would say b would be their largest concern at this stage. >> just like in simulation, how there is no fighting the scenario, there's no challenging the questions. all right, let's go right to the next slide. we are going to dig into skokor here. and as you know, president trump just met with king young chol, trichk photo of him sitting at the oval of course with his desk with the array of people opposite him holding forth, and so now we appear to be moving towards a second summit, although you will see in this one, e says a second summit will take place and that is still a

possibility, so you could certainly choose that. but the question, of course, is really going to, we're going to focus on what is, what could a summit produce, and we all know what came out of singapore. so really interesting to see that people here are so pessimistic that it is going to be nothing. no tangible progress. with 80%. and then we have a very small percentage of people that think we are going to get something positive out of it. we've got about 9% that would be in agreement to end the korean war, and then we've got about the same percentage for, you know, the promise to withdraw u.s. troops, have north korea provide a list of its, the components of its nuclear program, or a second summit won't take place. so i'm guessing, victor, you don't disagree with this too much. >> well, first, i mean so the

audience went down 26 points in terms of seeing this as a security crisis in 2019. yet at the same time, they think nothing is going to be accomplished in the summit that will take place a month from now. so that's interesting. so an agreement to end the korean war, not likely. promise to withdraw u.s. troop, not likely as a specific result of the summit. but as my colleague said earlier, it is not out of the realm of possibility, given this president's views on u.s. troops abroad. list of verifiable component, that would be a great outcome. i mean that would be the best outcome of the summit, because it would be what would be the first tangible step towards a real denuclearization process, an inventory of all of their capabilities such that you could locate and verify them and then begin a negotiation process on disablement and dismantlement, along a specified time line.

that would be the best outcome. and for that reason, it's very unlikely that that's going to happen. i don't know if i would agree that there would be nothing or no tangible progress, because as i said before, you know, there is a lot of pressure i think on both leaders to come up with something tangible this time that goes beyond the statement of principles that came out of singapore. you will have to remember, there's a lot of fanfare around that statement of principles an then seven months of nothing, really no progress at all. at the working level, in part because the north koreans don't want to negotiate at the working level, because it is harder to negotiate with people who know about the issue than it is to negotiate with the guy at the top who doesn't know anything about the issue. or maybe not anything, but is not as well entrenched in the negotiation. so i think what is likely to come out is something tangible that is a piece-meal step

forward, probably involving the youngunnuclear facility, the original nuclear facility, in return for what the north koreans really want the most now which is not a peace declaration. what they really want is relief from sanctions pressure. whether that comes from the united states, from the u.n., or through the south koreans, through u.n. emexemptions for s korean projects i think something along those lines will be more likely the outcome it's got to be something the president can defend as a positive step forward and for the north koreans it's got to be something enough so they can claim they can r-getting some sanctions relief. so e, a second summit won't take place. i would say maybe that it won't take place, but it could be delayed. because you know, we've seen this happen before, there's a lot of pre-positioning that

takes place. we do have six weeks before the approximate time of this meeting, so that does lend to more negotiations both over substance and logistics, than we had prior to singapore. but both of these leaders are famously fickle, so they could change their mind and decide to delay or postpone, but i think it will happen. >> what's the best outcome from south korea's perspective? >> so i think the optimal outcome would be, like i said, some tangible step going forward that all sides could point to, as achieving their objectives. that's the optimal. the outcome could be, it is not a failure so the process continues. the south koreans have a really big stake in the continuation of dip maegs, largely because 2017 led them to believe that the alternative is something that is much worse, right? the peninsula spiraling in the

direction of potential miscalculation, or even potential war. so i think their best outcome would be some incremental progress where everybody can say this process is alive, it's producing results. short of that, anything that allows them to say that the process is, maybe it's not thriving but it's still got a pulse. it's still got a heartbeat. >> i think from china's perspective, incremental progress is good, too. want the dialogue to continue. they don't want everything to fall apart. they don't want any sort of major break through either. okay. we have one more slide on north korea, if we could go to that. so now we really go into doom and gloom. if nuclear negotiations between the u.s. and north korea fail, what is going to happen. so please don't forget to turn

on your clickers again. and please vote. we have resuming missile and nuclear test, which of course the agreement is for that dual freeze, and so that would mean u.s./south korea would resume exercises. the second choice is really focused more on rhetoric. not really so much actions, but that there would be a heightened provocations, but primarily this would be a rhetorical response. than c is inter-korean engagement, will just continue. inter-korean engagement will also fail, is d, and e is china and russia redouble efforts to prop up north korea. so maybe not completely mutually exclusive, it would be more than one, but what do you think is most likely to happen? keep registering your votes. people are people spread out here. but a lot of optimism that inter-korean engagement is going to continue. i think i agree that probably we

would see a resumption of missile nuclear tests and military exercises. again, may not be mutually exclusive. victor, what do you think? >> i think if you take, so if you look, if you take a, b, and c together, right, that represents what, 47, almost, almost 91% of the audience, and i think that combination is right, that if there is -- first, it depends how you define failure. so if we define failure as, you know, both sides walk away from the meeting, saying this really sucked, you know, it was a really bad meeting, and we don't see future progress as possible, you know, if we use that definition of failure, then i think that, again, if we combine what all of you have said about a, b, and c, that to me looks like the likely outcome. one, the south korean government is committed to engagement, not

just because ideal logically they believe in it, they now have to tie their own domestic economic difficulty, the solution to their domestic economic difficulty, slow growth, high end employment, and two, entering in economic engagement, and of course, they don't want to go back to 2017, the year when they thought there could be war. so for that reason, i think that's right. they will continue to focus on engagement, even if the u.s., the u.s. diplomacy is failing. and i think again, if we use the definition of failure, being both sides walked away and they say there is nothing here anymore, i think we will go back to some of the missile testing, the u.s. will probably reengage with q saw faleagueil and a lot of name calling back and forth. the interesting thing that everything that president trump has done on north korea is, he

has gone out of his way not to criticize the north korean leader. and in almost every tweet, everything he said, he's been very careful not to criticize. and only flatter the north korean leader. so failure, failure would probably mean all that gets dropped. and all of a sudden, you know, what he did call it, rocket man, he becomes rocket man again. and he's no longer sort of the dear leader. >> we have to remember of course, with xi jingping, that's been true that president trump has always praised xi jingping except for that one time, he said, maybe he's not really my friend anymore and then he went back to being good friends. so you never know. he could flip. nick, i want to ask you, what are the implications for japan, if the talks fail? >> thank you. well, going back to the previous slide, i think people in japan would be comforted by the voting in this audience about the prospect for u.s. troop

withdrawal from the korean peninsula, because u.s. foreign presence on the korean peninsula is critical to japan's national security in terms of deterrence, and so we certainly wouldn't want to see that. i think japan's primary concern of course is to encourage more progress on the denuclearization front. victor made reference to the potential for south korea to talk about sanctions relief. i think japan is fundamentally committed to china maintain sanctions on north korea. in the u.n., absent any concrete evidence of change in its behavior, so from the japanese perspective, you know, support for this process, desire for concrete objective, and some

results, on denuclearization, and then on the back end, in terms of sequencing, a willingness on the part of japan to have a new relationship with north korea. so very instinct -- the in stings stingt is to maintain pressure. and obviously if north korea resumes nuclear missile tests japan is on the front lines of that threat. i think perhaps that could actually prompt a change in dynamics in u.s./japan relations. japan ties right now are quite strained between the two militaries. so perhaps that would encourage some more try lateral coordination in response to that threat. and i think japan's in tint will stingt will to be obviously coordinate more closely with

washington but also because of necessity with north korea as we return to a more provocative environment. >> just a comment nick made about the pry lateral relationship, i mean i completely agree that it is terribly strained and when we're at the point when we're hoping that crisis for north korea is going to be the kay that we get the tri-lateral relationship and the bilateral relationship with japan korea back on track, that is really a reflection of how bad the situation is. and we don't focus on it as much as we should, because we largely think of it in the context of coordinating on north korea. but the u.s. administration is just, you know, they're not only doing this bilaterally, they're doing it leader to leader. so we don't really feel the costs of missing that tri-lateral coordination, where as if anything we actual itly try to implement or do in an agreement will require cooperation between japan and

south korea. i am extremely worried about the state of this relationship right now. and there's really no sign, you know, the usual indicators you would see that it would be getting, none of these are present right now, so this is very bad. >> very good point. on the china piece here, i would say that china's really tried to walk this very fine line, keeping the north korea issue as a positive issue and the u.s./china relationship, and if xi jingping can use it to try to get any leverage on trade, which president trump put out, you know, in the first year that he was in office, but probably has evaporated from my point of view, but there aren't that many very positive issues in the bilateral relationship that the two are working on together, and north korea is still pretty much in the positive side of the ledger, but at the same time, china and russia have been pushing to get the sanctions eased. so it will be interesting to see if the nuclear negotiations fail, i think that puts more

pressure on china, as to how it is going to play this issue, in its relationship with the u.s. and whether it works more closely with russia. so that would be challenging. so i'm going to move to our next slide. spend a little bit more time on this one. because there is a lot to dig into here. the biggest boon to security in the indo-pacific during 2019 will turn out to be, and rehave five really good choices here all of which would be good, and the question is, you know, what is going to be the most important one. and it is, that is going to strengthen security in the indo-pacific. so you actually have to pick the one that you think is most, is going to happen, and is going to be most important to strengthen security in the region. so let's see where we have. we have closer u.s.-japan defense ties in the lead. people aren't too optimistic

about the reaffirmation of u.s. alliance commitments. yeah, we will talk more about the quad. nobody thinks china is pulling back on its activity. but, and we will talk more about the code of conduct in china, and the southeast asia discussions that are going on. so if everybody can register their vote, so it looks like closer u.s. japan defense ties is first. so nick, why don't you lead us off. is that the right choice? >> sure. absolutely. >> there we go. >> no, i think it reflects a lot of developments and security cooperation between the u.s. and japan, in recent months. just getting to the question, you know, boon to security in the indo-pacific, there is a lot of discussion in washington and

tokyo about what free and open indo-pacific means. and whether the u.s. and japan are aligned in terms of the objectives under that strategy. and we can, you know, debate that going forward, but i think fundamentally, that concept is a framework that will facilitate more defense cooperation between the u.s. and japan. and other like-minded countries, like-minded countries and partners in the region. as i mentioned earlier, japan has a new defense strategy, with three basic themes. strengthen its own capabilities, strengthen the u.s./japan alliance, and partner with others. and that's very much closely aligned with the national security strategy and the national defense strategy, unveiled by the trump administration. so i think there is a good framework in place. what will we see in the coming year? i think there's a lot of

dialogue on cooperation and new domain space and cyber. we will see more exercises. a big theme that we're working on at csis is alliance inter-op prablts. the more inter operable we are as ally, the more effective the alliance will be and it sends a very compelling signal throughout the region. and so there is a lot of positive momentum there. potentially some friction on trade bilaterally, which may be addressed in the upcoming panel. so you know, perhaps a mixed bag for u.s./japan this year. but i think the sign of greatest momentum is on defense tie, and we're going to see that in the year ahead. >> great. that's a good segue to you, pat. the last panel, we talked a little bit about the quad, and whether it would be focused on trade facilitation or should

security or infrastructure and a lot of people chose all three. probably very optimistic what do you think? what role is the quad going to play? what role should it play? >> thanks, bonnie. i was surprised in the first panel we had about the, i thought it would be higher on the trade and particularly on infrastructure side. and you know, we had a real uptick, didn't we, in the security side. so it is quite an american concept to push very hard on that, and on the military side of things. i'm very gratified on this. i was surprised. i was very keen to see what the numbers were going to be. and to come out number two, i love my scholarly independence when it comes to this, and the way i think we get there, is not a top-down approach. you know, if you think about the successful, as we see here, if you think about the successful alliances we've seen, it is a bottom-up approach, right? it is all well and good for

heads of government and foreign ministers and defense ministers and bureaucrats to sit around and ort of have these grand strategic discussions with each other but in fact, the best way to get there is at the service level. it is the intraoperability. and working together and i think you see these things bubble up. in things on this, we're hosting panels about what are those niche things, in the quad and in the alliance, particularly like the trilateral level between japan, india, the u.s., australia, and where can we get the services together and in the maritime domain and more, and if they have the common platform that everyone is now using, i think it is no secret, my colleague rick and i, have a lot of cushion discussions about how does raising it, how does india come on board and what most importantly, what is it in it

for inda to come on board? and you know, one of the problems you've got, forgetting the strategic, right, and we all know that the legacy issues of the movement, and what is really strategically in india's interest in something like. that but the major problem you've got is intraoperability piece, india traditionally has a mixed bag of where their weapons systems and high end platforms come from. they obviously, russia has been a significant exporter of military armaments and military systems, so that is naturally a problem, just at that tact cal level, operational level for integration. but i must say, i am gratified with that. a lot of people, when i tell them that the quad's the piece that i work on at csis, i sort of always get a good luck with that, mate. but this gives me some heart for myself and my team to keep going. but i think a key one, just at the practical level, is mall

bar. you know, if there are indian officials in the room, or those who have contacts, please let's try and push mallbar to move from a three nation activity to a four-nation activity. and i think that, as i said before, these sorts of concepts, these sorts of alliance, whatever you want to call them, you know, coalitions, do start at that service practical level, where we can build up from there, rather than a top-down approach. >> so coming in third, close third, 21%, we have diplomatic progress between china and southeastern asian countries on the south china sea. and greg, as you know, the leader told us there is a three year time frame for finishing the coc, so 201, not a lot of urgency, 2019, not a lot of urgency, we've seen the single draft and that was written about first by karl that ier, it has been pretty widely circulated

and a hospital of interesting things have been inserted in that draft by some of the players, and maybe you could talk about what are some of the prospects for really significant progress being made, and what are the main issues that the countries disagree on. >> i'm rarely called an optimistic around town. and this makes me feel even more pessimistic than usual. i'm shocked, shocked to see 21% of the audience. i mean look, if there were diplomatic progress, that would obviously be an enormous boon in the pacific security. i just don't see much prospect of it. as you said, china's timetable is now three years at best at three years maybe. just last week, we had the latest meeting of the regular vietnam china meeting on border affairs and the ind ian prime minister said the men were obviously upset because ards he went to the press and said he is frustrated by the slow pace of diplomatic progress on the coc from the chinese song.

and talking about the negotiating text, there are a lot of poison pills inserted into the single draft negotiating text. not just by china. i mean there are a lot by china. there are clear nonstarters that china puts in there. just to see what they can get away with. that are not going to fly with the others. the indonesians put in things about fishing that won't fly with china and the malaysians and philippines put in things that won't fly with china. the vietnamese was so cynical about the progress, he is stapled their own code to the back and said none of this is going to work, this is our suggestion. >> they are talked about maybe 50% of the easiest issues. the discussion of the the hard core of the south china sea problem, where is the code of conduct going to apply geographically, and how do you operationalize, cooperation, fisheries shall and oil and gas, it hasn't come up yet. how does it operate. it hasn't come up with. so if the last 10% of any negotiation is still the toughest, they still have 40% to

go before they get to the last 10%. i don't see any evidence. and the countries that are going to be pushing it this year don't give me a lot of faith. thailand now, going to be distracted by again, the delayed election. i think the thai just want to get out of this thing without being tarred and feather and they won't proactive on pushing on the south china sea or anything else. the fils peo philippines has been coordinating and the philippines told us there is going to be a code of conduct process in 2017 and then said maybe we will get a deal last year and so far, none of that is true. manila is way ahead of china on this. the bilateral diplomatic processes offer a little more optimistic. but again, not much. on the oil and gas side, you had an agreement during xi jingping's trip in manila last november to continue to negotiate on oil and gas. it was an mou to pursue an mou,

basically. the philippino, china, set a one year time frame on that and by november of this year, they hope to have some kind of agreement on oil and gas, but again it is unclear if they're are actually willing to accept the philippine principle written into the mou which is that chinese companies have to invest in oil and gas operations under philippine law, you know, paying taxes to the philippines, essentially recognizing philippines, awesome. i don't see evidence that beijing is going to be willing to make that concession. i suspect in november this is going to be delayed again then you have the oil and gas side where you did have an agreement in december 2017 between china and asean to declare a decade of coastal and marine environmental prek protection miss the south china sea and pledged to follow that up with concrete negotiations. over a year later, as far as i know, there have been no concrete negotiations. again, it's run into the same problems, geographic skill, et cetera, than the others.

so i don't have a whole lot of faith, though if there's a crack, i suspect it with be an marine -- >> bea, in the u.s. commitment to the philippines and south korea. talked ant this in the last panels as regards to the philippines. greg just co-authored a terrific peace with eric sayers, war on the rocks, this issue, which i commend to you. so, quickly, greg, what do you think of the prospects from your perspective of the u.s. making a reaffirmation? >> yeah, this was my choice. i'm obviously doing a terrible job, if the goal is to guess where the audience is going to go, largely because of the negative consequences. if we don't do this on both sides, the consequences for indo-pacific security are far worse than on the other four. i do think it's likelier than not that we see an affirmation that the futumutual defense tre applies. i think the u.s. is not going to

recognize philippine sovereignty over the nine features that the philippines currently occupies in the separapratleys. i do think it's likely they we reaffirm the position that then-secretary of defense william cohen voiced in 1998 which was that an attack on philippine troop, armed forces, public vessels or planes anywhere in the pacific which is the language of article 5, the treaty, includes the south china sea. if that doesn't happen, there are only two possibilities. one, the philippines does walk. they decide that the treaty does them no good. and i can't reiterate this enough, i think they are dead serious about that. with good reason. it won't cost them -- it won't cost them as much as u.s. thinks it will. all aftof our other security cooperation on counterterror isr, et cetera, none of that requires mbts. we do that with indonesia, malaysia, singapore, vietnam 37 the only things the philippines gets that is special is a guarantee against external

attack. if we're not going to offer that, what is mbt? duterte will see it as a negotiating tactic, convince the chinese he's serious. the other option, we remain too vague, provoking chinese add veneventual what about our alliance adventurism. >> victor, what about our alliance commitment with south korea? >> the thing about this question, i don't foe whether the audience is answering this because this is what they think will happen or this is what they want to happen. if you compare it to the thing this morning, i think korea was, like, the outlier in terms of the outlier that would be the most problematic, so, you know, we're in a situation, where the key elements of the alliance under negotiation are things like sma, the cost-sharing agreement, which expired december 31st last year, right? january, whatever it is, january 23rd now. and there still is no agreement on how to divide the cost of

u.s. forces. so there are a variety of things that need to be negotiated between these two countries and if they're negotiated to a mutually satisfactory resolut n resolution, that would be a boone to the alliance, for sure, be ut but if they don't, the trend lines right now look like they're not going to be negotiated to a meaningful settlement, then, you know, the alliance will be on rocky waters for this year. >> okay. we're going to move to our last question before we turn to the q&a from all of you in the audience. and our last question is which current or potential location for a chinese dual-use port is the most concerning? so, current, obviously, the chinese already have a base in jaguti where we've seen live fire exercises. chinese marines and, of course, their base is alongside that of the presence of several other countries including the united states. and a lot of news reports about

where else we might see chinese bases. and they could be, of course, evolving, dual use, again, they could be, start with logistic facilities, but i think the chinese increasingly talk amongst themselves about the need to have these kind of facilities that not necessarily using the term, basibasis, but them logistics facilities. we're looking about 50% of you say pakistan. i assume this is guadar. there's potential in cambodia, there's been a lot of discussion in the south pacific, or, of course, "e," the potential is some people would say there's no need to be concerned. but looks like there's only that 7% of you who think there's no reason to be concerned. so then the question is, where just else are we going to see bases? we don't have any south asia

experts up here. does anyone want to talk about what's going on in guadar? okay. pat? >> greg just said before we came on, you can have it, if it's pakistan, i'll have it. >> you can do both. >> i'll have a go. look, this is a really interesting one, isn't it? because it reflects the audience in which we belong. i can promise you if you ask this question in, perhaps, you know, new zealand or australia, you're going to get rapidly different figures. you know, i don't think it's any great secret that china and pakistan have a long-held relationship. i don't think there's anything particularly new in that. i'm not convinced given the current djibouti operations that that's going to give them, if this did occur, that's going to give them any great extra, you know, ability to operate, considering they've already got operations in that region,

anyway. for me, vanuatu. for me, that's the really interesting one. you're pushing out potentially the new areas for operation for the navy. it's pushing out further away from the chinese mainland and potentially cuts themselves, you know, sit s very strategically between australia and new zealand and the united states. but the pakistan one doesn't surprise me given the odd yenau where we're at. again, there's nothing particularly new in that. >> craig, what about cambodia, should we be worried? >> yes, but, i mean, not as worried as we should be at djibouti which is a military base and guadar where we see vessels making calls and using facilities. much like vanuatu, that's

potential, the potential word up there, in the location. the big concern is as part of this massive project in cambodia, where the chinese among others things built casinos and whatnot but also a deepwater port and begun expansions on a nearby airstrip. the cambodians strenuously denied there will be any chinese base in cambodia. vice president pence delivered a warning very clearly to the cambodians when he was out in asia last year. but the cambodians often denial a lot of things that actually happen and if there's any place in southeast asia where you can imagine chinese rotational presence in the feature, not this year, which is why i didn't take this, but in the future, it is cambodia. all of the concern about the philippines or myanmar or indones indonesia, i find those to be overblown and increasingly unlikely. given domestic politics. i can't imagine permanent base

in cambodia, but i can imagine an agreement to allow rotational chinese access for certain things especially considering that the circle of rent seekers around hun sen is relatively small. the chinese don't have to worry about public pressure. they only have to buy off the leadership. that is not the case, even if other authoritarian countries in southeast asia. >> great. so we have, i think, eight eior nine minutes left to go. going to take questions from the audience. please wait for the microphone, state your name, affiliation, and make a very short question so we can try to collect a few of them. so let's go over here to the front and the microphone is on its way. >> thank you very much for a great panel. i have a question to dr. cha. can you share your assessment with kim chong-ol's visit here. had a meeting with pompeo and the president trump.

is there any fruits to narrow a gap between them when it comes to denuclearization? thank you very much. >> will you repeat the question? >> the question was about kim yon-chol's visit and what came out of it with president trump. okay. let's collect three questions. next here in front. wait for the microphone, thank you. >> currently visiting the washington institute. how does this flow into the middle east? >> okay. how does this flow into the middle east? we have over here -- yeah, microphone's on its way. thank you. >> hey. i'm affiliated with the vice america. i have a question to greg poling. thanks for bringing up the coc.

we heard announced that they plan to achieve the coc in three years and vietnam complaint about -- complaining about a very slow progress. so i'm wondering whether it's feasib feasible. second, the announcement of china of three years, achieve blt, does this mean china is serious about risk management in the south china sea. and harassment and confrontation with other state. and we can expect the south china sea will enter the period of sustainable peace once the coc is achieved. thank you. >> okay. we'll start with victor. you want to make headlines here? >> i think they already made the headline because they, you know, the result of the meeting was that they announced a summit sometime in the end of february, place to be determined. i think, so, generally you think, all right, if he comes and meets with pompeo and his

counterparts, that could be part of a negotiation. the call on the president was probably to deliver some sort of letter or response from the north korean leader directly to president trump. it's probably another beautifully written love letter that the president just fell in love with and just, but, again, you know, i think what, where we are now is that we've sort of set a date toward the end of february, and we have six weeks. right? i mean, there are logistics that have to be planned, obviously, six weeks. i mean, if we're taking bets, i think vietnam is likely, the place to do it, just because logistically, it works for both, the north koreans and the united states. hawaii, frankly, would not work for the north koreans that well because they don't have much infrastructure there. but we have these six weeks now, not just only to plan logistics, but for steve beigun and his counterpart and others, pompeo, himself, to try to negotiate, again, what will be hopefully be tangible outcomes from the summit meeting. if the summit does not result in

actual steps toward denuclearization, it will be declared a failure. everybody will declare it a failure. and so, and so it wouldn't surprise me if there was postponement, if there's not enough progress. to me, the situation that's most concerning is, like greg said earlier, the last 10% of negotiation is the hardest and if we get to that point, and then the president says, i'll just wing it from here, right? that's, of course, the most dangerous scenario because this is, you know, as i was saying yesterday, this is really -- this literally is rocket science, right? this is difficult stuff and you just can't wing it. >> we -- on the middle east question, we obviously don't have middle east experts up here so i don't know if anybody really wants to comment, but -- in the middle east, if we go back to just the pivot under the

obama administration, i mean, the whole idea was to really pivot somewhat away from the middle east and those of us, i think, who work on asia and indo-pacific really think this is a critical area of the world we should be paying more attention to, whether or not we are really as a nation able to successfully pivot somewhat away from the middle east. our president thinks we're pulling troops out of syria. to me, it's still a work in progress. if you look at where we put our resources, for example, i mean, there's a lot of other places we're not putting them and i think many of us would like to see more resources in asia, although the asia reassurance initiative act is one sort of step in that direction. anybody want to add anything else on that? nick? >> i would just say, briefly, in the context of the debate about u.s. strategy in asia, and the free and open indo-pacific vision, it really comes down to sort of a transition in u.s.

strategy from a focus on responding to terrorism, which is overwhelmingly the post-9/11 focus to now overwhelmingly the notion of strategic competition with china and russia and the importance of u.s. alliances in asia in that context. whether the current focus on asia leads to less attention to the middle east or a renewed focus on u.s. forward presence around the world to maintain a stable international order, is probably an open question, but i think this focus on asia is not necessarily just regional. i think it has potential to open up larger questions about the u.s. role in the world, and our allies and partners in asia. talk as much about that as day do about what's going on in the region. >> greg, couple of questions for you. >> yeah, on the code of conduct,

i -- i don't see any evidence that any side, china or particularly vietnam, but also to a degree the other compla complainants are willing to concede. that would require a change if strategy among a lot of the parties. the only way that beijing is going to decide to clarify the scope of its historic rights to make the concessions that would be required to actually reach a fair deal is going to if there's an awful lot of international pressure that convinces china that the perception of it being an outraw law in the south china undermines its equities globally, undermines the idea that it's a responsible rising power, that it serves a seat in global rulemaking. that isn't happening. that came off the table with the election of rodrigo duterte and this administration's decision to focus almost exclusively on

north korea and trade issues for the first, you know, and a half of the administration. we need a much greater focus from the u.s. and partnering nations on the south china sea to get to that point. whether or not china is willing to reach a deal now, at all, i mean, yeah, i think beijing is serious about negotiations, premised on the idea that they think the time is now right to push the southeast asians to make concessions that they wouldn't have made. i think beijing believes that the philippines is pliable right now and that they can leverage vietnam and some of the others like indonesia into a deal premised on the idea of inevitable u.s. retreat from the region and that china's victory in the south china sea is inevitable and so the southeast asians might just get onboard. they've convinced rodrigo duterte of that,thy thank they can convince others, but that commitment to negotiation only extends so far. you know, if you look at last year, we had despite all of the

nice rhetoric about negotiations, very rapid militarization, very rapid deployment to the south china sea. for the first time, we had deployment of surface to air missiles, advanced jammers, we had the first landing of an h6 bomber in the paracels. we have a 24-7 rotational presence of poa navy and coast guard ships throughout the entire south china sea. the size of the chinese maritime militia, deployed permanently to the separapratleys. these are the country prepared to use force if negotiations fail. >> this has been a terrific panel. we are going to take a ten-minute break and go have some coffee. please come back. we saved the best for last. we're going to talk about whether there's going to be a trade war or a trade deal and other questions relating to exhibition and trade innovation in the region. so, please join me in thanking our panel. [ applause ]